The California Democratic Party's executive board met in Long Beach over the weekend. It voted to endorse a number of ballot measures, including the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), which is headed for your vote in November.

The Dems join the ACLU, the NAACP of California and national NORML in endorsing AUMA. Last month the Los Angeles County Democratic Party, the nation's largest local Democratic Party group, endorsed the initiative.

"Los Angeles County Democrats support the Adult Use of Marijuana Act because it will end the failed policies of prohibition, which have disproportionately harmed communities of color," says Eric Bauman, L.A. County Democratic Party chair and California Democratic Party vice chair. "It will protect California’s children, and it will provide critical funding for public health and public safety programs."

It wasn't always this way. California voters rejected recreational marijuana in 2010. And both parties, wanting to be seen as pro–law-and-order, have a history of being harsh on self-medication that doesn't involve alcohol.

L.A. Weekly staff writer Dennis Romero has worked on staff at several magazines and newspapers, including the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, where he participated in Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the L.A. riots. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone online, the Guardian, and, as a young stringer, the New York Times.